Cornell has 1 administrator for every 2 undergrads, analysis finds

Cornell University employs one administrator for every two undergraduate students, according to an analysis by The College Fix.

During the 2022-23 school year, the most recent data available, the university had 7,764 full-time administrators and support staff, according to information the school filed with the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

Administrators and support staff include management, student and academic affairs divisions, IT, public relations, administrative support, maintenance, legal, and other non-academic departments.

Full-time student enrollment that year was 15,685, making the ratio of undergrads to administrators and support staff 495 to 1,000, or one to two.

Comparatively, a decade ago, the Ivy League school had 460 administrators and support staff positions per 1,000 undergrads during the 2013 school year, IPEDS data shows.

Cornell created more than 1,100 new positions in a decade, going from 6,619 administrative and support staff in 2013-14 to 7,764 in 2022-23, according to the data.

Full-time undergraduate enrollment also increased by 1,305 and teaching and instructional staff by 352 across that same 10-year period, but the ratio of educators to students remained basically the same: about one to five…

Two Cornell professors told The Fix that they have seen a notable rise in DEI administrative hiring since the George Floyd protests in 2020.

“DEI has become a campus administrative obsession, quasi-religious in nature, including not only coursework and programming, but events and a ‘land acknowledgement’ read at campus events and attached to administrative emails,” law Professor William Jacobson told The Fix in an email Monday.

Randy Wayne, a research scientist and professor of biology, told The Fix in a phone interview last week that he believes DEI is taking away from the teaching mission of Cornell. In recent years, Wayne said he has watched the number of classes decrease and the number of DEI efforts increase – including in STEM fields.